


These Imperfect Lives

by CynicalRainbows



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Childhood Trauma, Fluff and Angst, Foster AU, Foster Care, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jane Kitty and Joan as a family unit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-12-13 16:09:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21000455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynicalRainbows/pseuds/CynicalRainbows
Summary: Based on a headcanon from tumblr, in which Jane is foster parent, Kitty is her adopted daughter and Joan is a foster child.I don't even like this sort of AU usually but I'm somehow writing a lot of it.





	1. Fragments of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Utterly self indulgent. A mix of angst and fluff, with references to childhood abuse, anxiety and panic attacks, and also of Kitty being the best and most supportive of sisters.

She’s five and she’s one of the fosters.  
(She isn’t sure what a foster is, except that it’s a noun- like girl or cat or person.)

She knows it links her to some of the other children in the house- Jessie who likes to tear strips of paper- out of storybooks, from newspapers- and chew them up, and Asef who likes to tell people about all the dinosaurs he can name- and separates her (them) from the others- Amanda and Jody and Max, who are much older, almost grown ups.

(Amanda and Jody go off to school every day on a bus by themselves, with proper bags- not bookbags and they like reading books that are all words and no pictures at all except on the cover. 

Max likes Pokemon cards and turning off her light and holding her door shut.)

She thinks a lot about what it is that links her to the other fosters: is it something good or bad? Is it like saying that she has blonde hair and two freckles on the back of her left hand? Is it like saying she’s stupid because she can’t tie her laces or tell the time?

She tries to ask Aunty Meg what makes her a foster one morning but before she can properly ask, Jessie knocks her arm with accidentally-on-purpose precision as she’s pouring milk on her Weetabix and makes it spill- over the table and over the edge and into her lap, and questions come second place to sighs and cross mopping up in which the sponge in thrown into the sink and an exasperated ‘Why can’t you be more careful Joan, for goodness sake?’ said between pursed lips.

She eats her too-soggy Weetabix in her milk-damp dress, forcing mouthfuls of cardboard-tasting mush past the tightness in her throat, and she doesn’t ask again.

**

She’s seven and they’re playing Hide and Seek- it’s the tail end of Max’s birthday party, and everyone is getting tired and irritable with each other and keeping an eye out for the appearance of the cake and party bags that will signal The End.

(Joan has to share her birthday with Jessie and every year, he steps on her toe when they’re blowing out the candles on their shared cake and every year, she misses her wish. Every year, she peels back the hard, thick icing from around her slice and every year, Aunt Meg shakes her head at her for being picky and tells her to stop playing with her food.)

The hiding places she would have picked- behind the sofa, behind the curtains- are taken by the time she gets to them and impatient hands push at her as she’s hissed at to find her own place Joan, just go away!, so she goes back out into the hall and wonders if she’ll be in trouble for spoiling things if she isn’t hidden by the time Jessie finishes counting to 100.

(She knows already that she Spoils Things, that it Spoils Things when having to swallow scratchy dry burnt toast makes her gag and cry, that it Spoils Things when she tears off a new dress because makes her skin prickle and burn, that it really Spoils Things when a hundred voices clamour in her ears at once and bright lights sear into her brain and she has to close her eyes and put her hands over her ears because it’s tooloudtooloudtooloudtooloud-)

The hall cupboard catches her eye and it’s actually empty: wedging herself between everyone’s old welly boots and winter coats is uncomfortable but it’s worth it, she thinks, to not Spoil Things as usual.

It’s quite dark in the cupboard. 

She hadn’t quite realised when getting in how dark it would be but she’s inside now and if she comes out and tries to find a new place, perhaps Jessie will have finished counting…. And so she stays.

And it’s a funny thing- as she stays, the longer she stays, it’s as if the cupboard is becoming darker.

Darker and smaller- she can lean forward and stretch out her hand and only just about touch the wall in front of her with the lightest brush of her fingertips…. But even though she knows this, can feel this, there's a part of her that keeps telling her that really, the wall is just in front of her face, that the cupboard is barely big enough for her, that she can’t breathe-

She can’t breathe and she’s cold (even though she isn’t, even though the cupboard is actually quite warm because it’s right next to the airing cupboard where the clean towels and fresh pajamas live) and she’s hungry too (except she isn’t hungry, she wasn’t hungry before…. But now it’s as if she can feel an ache in her tummy, except it’s a hungry ache and not a feeling-sick ache) and although she only just climbed into the cupboard, it also feels as if really, secretly, she’s been inside for a long, long time- just her inside in the dark and in the cold for hours and hours and hours and-

When they pull open the cupboard door, her stomach turns over with a fear that she can taste- a familiar fear, somehow, though she isn’t sure exactly what she’s afraid of- and she’s shamefully sick down her for-best-only-and-no-exceptions dress. 

It isn’t Jessie who finds her and opens the door so the game isn’t over- but everyone stops playing anyhow.

Aunt Meg tells everyone it was too much birthday cake- and no one says anything, even though the cake is still uncut in the kitchen and remains uncut for quite a long time.

After that, she dreams about the cupboard a lot. She supposes it’s the hall cupboard because she can’t remember ever hiding in one before, but in her dreams, it doesn’t look anything like it.

Sometimes, the dreams creep into the day too and she remembers hitting hands and voices loud enough to make her cover her ears.

The first, second and third times she has the dream, Aunt Meg comes into the bedroom to pick her duvet off of the floor and tells her to go back to sleep.

After time number four, she sounds cross, and doesn’t seem to notice when Max pinches her for keeping him awake all night; after a while, Joan stops counting and Aunt Meg stops coming in.

The dreams don’t stop.

**

Jane doesn’t come into her room without her permission.

That’s what she says at least, has said right from the first day- but Joan is thirteen and she’s been told this often, knows that ‘never’ often means ‘never when she’s in the house’, or ‘never that they’ll admit to’, or ‘never until they become concerned’. She’s never had a room that locked from the inside- sometimes the outside but never the inside- and she isn’t stupid, she knows how to hide the things that she doesn’t want found.

When Kitty bursts into her bedroom with an armful of laundry though, she’s taken by surprise and jumps so badly that her old walkman headphones are popped from her ears- lying in her lap, she can still just about hear the tinny strains of the song she’d been listening to reverberating from them. She’d let her guard down, turned the music up too loud to be keeping her usual one-ear-open (stupid stupid stupid) and now Kitty is standing awkwardly on the threshold, hugging the clothes self consciously to her chest.

‘Sorry. I knocked. I thought-’

She trails off uncertainly- without looking, Joan knows what she’s staring at and fights down the urge to cover the pathetic pile of crumbled stale biscuits with her hands.

There’s no point- Kitty has already seen them, and now it’s just a toss up between what reaction she’ll get first. She knows she’ll get them all eventually- she always does- but the order tends of variate: the It’s Unsanitary hysteria, the It’s Just Greediness contempt, the Acting As If We Don’t Feed You Enough guilt-tripping, the Aren’t You Too Old For This Silliness headshaking, and sometimes- if she’s very, very unlucky- the You Obviously Won’t Be Hungry For Dinner- or breakfast or lunch or supper- Now.

She wonders if Kitty will fetch Jane immediately or tease her by making her wait and beg and plead first: she doesn’t know the girl well enough yet really to be able to tell. She seems nice enough- just as Jane seems nice enough…. But still…..

The limbo of not knowing is unbearable- it makes her throat tight and her eyes hot (pathetic pathetic pathetic)- and so when Kitty takes a couple of steps into the room, it’s almost a relief.

She doesn’t say anything though, just keeps holding onto the clothes and biting her lip so Joan makes an effort to talk. It’s a slim chance, slim to non existent, but she has to try. 

(Clearing her throat hurts.)

‘Please don’t-’

It’s as if this shakes Kitty out of whatever reverie she’s in- she gives a little twitch as if she’s waking up and talks at the same time.

‘It’s alright-’

‘Please don’t tell-’ 

(Of course Kitty will tell eventually but extracting a promise of silence will buy her enough time to throw everything away before she can get into worse trouble.)

‘It’s alright.’

Kitty’s right next to her now and Joan is tensed up with the proximity- she wants to flinch away, knows she can’t without offending, she’s frozen-

‘I won’t tell Mum, I promise.’ 

What is she saying? 

‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t- I just- I-’ She wants to explain, she can’t explain, it’s too hard. She’s shaking, it’s making the words come out wrong.

‘Hey. It’s ok.’

Kitty’s voice is very soft and very gentle- she doesn’t move, she doesn’t try to touch Joan, but she digs in her pocket and offers a crumpled tissue.

‘Here. It’s clean, I promise.’

It’s embarrassing that she needs it, it’s embarrassing that Kitty is seeing her like this, the whole thing is horrible and embarrassing and uncomfortable ...but at least Kitty doesn’t look impatient.

‘I’m really sorry, I wasn’t- I wasn’t trying to be-’ She falters. ‘Please don’t tell-’

‘I promise I won’t tell Mum, ok? I won’t tell anyone. You don’t need to be sorry. It’s ok.’

The things she’s saying just don’t make sense and perhaps the incomprehension is in Joan’s face because Kitty gives her a sad half-smile.

‘I did the same thing when I first came. Hid food and things so that if I ever got- if I ever needed it, if things ever got bad, I’d have a supply. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?’

Joan nods slowly- there’s no point in lying, and it’s a relief that Kitty doesn’t think she’s being greedy, or that she’s being unhygienic or ungrateful or weird.

Still….

It’s hard to square the Kitty in front of her with what she’s saying: the Kitty-from-before sounds scared and young and not unlike Joan herself. She doesn’t sound a thing like the cool, grown up Kitty that she’s shared a house with for nearly two weeks now.

Kitty with her private singing lessons and pink tipped hair and her irrepressible giggle and her cool friends that swoop in and out like graceful, colourful birds- Cathy with her arms full of Honours-level textbooks and Anne with her bright red lipstick that she wears even with her school uniform and Anna with her long athletes legs and exotic hint of a German accent. She can’t believe this Kitty was ever reduced to hiding food like an animal making a hoard, that she was ever frightened enough to need to.

The two Kitty’s don’t seem at all comparable but she can’t see why Kitty would lie- not about something like this- and she feels, behind her fear and her confusion- the very tiniest frizzle of something else, the tiniest of possibilities, the faintest flicker of hope that survives the cold douse of common sense that comes almost immediately after: Perhaps I could be like that one day.

Kitty is still talking; Joan has to make herself listen again.

‘-Of course, you’re much cleverer than I was- you made a much better choice of things-’

There’s a new tone to her voice now, a lightness, like she’s sharing a secret.

‘-Choosing biscuits is much more sensible-’

She can’t believe Kitty is talking about this- something that has always been a shameful secret- so casually: moreso, she’s actually praising Joan for it. A clever choice? The biscuits were all she could think to hide without drawing attention to what she was doing. But Kitty is making it sound like Joan was doing something good.

‘What did I decide to hide? I was such an idiot- the social worker had stopped on the way to Joan’s, right, at this like bakery place? And she said I could have a cake- and they were these-’ Kitty gestures expansively ‘-these HUGE creamy cakes, and I was like, really pleased, because I thought it would last me for ages, it was so big… God knows how she AND Jane managed to miss me sneaking it in…..Actually-’ She stops, raises her hand. ‘No, I DO know, because we came in and suddenly it started raining and Jane asked the social worker to wait and SPRINTED to bring the washing in, and so they didn’t really notice me….’

As Kitty tells the story, Joan notices two things. She’s stopped shaking. That’s one thing. The other is… that she’s actually listening, despite herself. She’s still anxious but she’s interested too, she wants to hear how it turns out.

‘- and so I put it under my bed- I know, it’s a rubbish hiding place but I was only nine, remember- and just sort of thought it would be fine there. Big mistake.’ Kitty rolls her eyes theatrically. ‘I went off to school the next day and when I came home…. Just….’ She takes a moment, as if to let the horror unfold. ‘Ants. Like, so many ants. I didn’t actually know they could climb stairs so that was a shock and….oh my goodness, Jane had such a shock! I think she thought I was being murdered when I started screaming!’

Kitty’s laughing as she tells it and Joan actually finds she’s smiling too- it’s not just the story, it’s how Kitty is telling it, like it’s a secret she’s choosing to share, something she and Joan are in on together because both of them understand.

‘I was just crying my eyes out- it took me SO long until I could even be near an ants nest without just completely freaking out. Jane was so lovely about it, though.’

Kitty’s stopped laughing now, she has a soft, far-away look in her eyes.

‘She didn’t say a word- not as far as telling me off or anything. She looked at the mess, and just took me right back downstairs and sat me down in the living room and told me not to worry, that I wasn't in any trouble at all, and she wasn’t the slightest bit cross and that she’d sort it all out… eventually I stopped crying and apologising and she gave me a hug and went and cleaned everything up…. And then later on, she told me straight out that I never had to worry about not having enough to eat with her, that even if I couldn’t always have exactly the food I might want, I could always be sure I’d have enough to be full and that I never had to be afraid to ask for more. And that things like being warm and clean and having enough to eat were things she absolutely promised I wouldn’t have to worry about ever again.’

Kitty sounds so heartfelt as she talks, it makes Joan want to cry again- for the scared baby Kitty in the story…..and for herself, too, although she can’t quite articulate why.

‘Did you- believe her?’ She can’t quite believe she’s asking it but it’s out before she can reconsider.

‘Oh no, of course not!’ Kitty smiles as if it’s obvious. ‘Of course I didn’t- I was relieved she wasn’t cross and I was glad she said it… but you know how it is- people say things and it’s so easy, it’s easily said and easily broken.’

Joan nods- she understands that all too well.

‘But after a while, I did.’

‘How?’

Kitty shrugs. ‘She proved that I could. No matter what I did, she always made sure I still had enough to eat, that I was ok. She never shouted, she never lost her temper… even when I- no, I’ll tell you another time, it might give you ideas! No matter what happened, she made me see I didn't have to be scared of her. And she was never cross that I didn’t trust her right away either. She said that too- that she hoped I’d trust her but that she knew it would be hard and that she didn’t expect me to right away but that she hoped I’d let her prove that I could.’

‘She said the same thing to me.’ Joan doesn’t add that it’s only now she’s contemplating that they were anything other than empty words: she’s had The Talk about trust from too many people who quickly grew irritated at her skittshness.

Kitty nods. ‘Of course. And she did prove it. Like, she said that I’d always be fed but she also gave me this tupperware with energy bars and things that would last and wouldn’t go bad in it so that I wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen if she stopped. She didn’t stop me from preparing for the worst, she just….showed me that the worst would never happen with her. Does that make sense?’

‘Yes….’ Joan is more confused than before, she doesn’t know how to respond to all of this… but the knot of anxiety in her stomach is loser than it was before. And she isn’t shaking or crying or apologising.

(That’s something.)

Later, Kitty brings the tupperware- empty for many years, apparently, but now filled again from the kitchen cupboard- from her own room and puts it on Joan’s bed with a smile and a couple of books.

‘Thank you.’

‘It’s ok. You can keep it. I don’t need it anymore.’ A pause, and then her head pops around the doorway again.

‘The books I DEFINITELY want back eventually though, ok? They’re Cathy’s. Tell me if you like them so I can tell her- she’ll be thrilled if I’ve managed to get another person into them!’

Joan stammers another thank you, and when Kitty is gone, she looks at the box for a long time before hiding it away.

She wonders if one day, she won’t need it anymore either.

For the first time ever, it feels like a possibility.


	2. Thunder, Lightening and Netflix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For someone who has always quite disliked both this genre of fic, AU's generally and super indulgent fluff, I'm managing to write an awful lot of it.

The thunder is loud.

The thunder is very, very loud.

Relentless- the noise of it breaks like a wave over the dark bedroom, crashing down so forcefully that by the next peal, it’s still reverberating, an auditory undertow, and Joan is sinking.

She can’t block it out, she can’t escape it, she can’t move- and when she hears footsteps and her bedroom door creak open, she has to force herself to lie still and quiet.

A shaft of light falling over her bed; her face half hidden in the pillow.

She can’t make herself breathe slowly so she just doesn’t breathe at all (she’s done this before) and she hopes against hope that she has Jane fooled.

‘Joan?’

Jane’s voice is very soft- she’s clearly caught between not really believing that Joan is asleep but also not willing to risk waking her if by any chance she is.

‘Are you alright, sweetheart?’

She’s definitely heard something, and Joan digs her nails into her palms as hard as she can. Stupid stupid stupid. 

Jane waits a moment.

‘If you need anything, you know where I am.’

She shuts the door, just as Joan is forced to give in and start breathing.

Thank goodness.

She does like Jane. She does. She’s definitely been in worse homes.

Except that’s the problem- she knows she can deal with not-nice, she can survive worse (she has survived worse). And every home she’s ever been in began ok.

The inevitable deterioration has occurred with varying rapidity.  
She’s not afraid (not much, not really, not anymore) that Jane will do anything really bad, it’s more the fear that Jane will weary of keeping up the patient, calm, gentle front for someone who is still so skittish, so quick to flinch, so unable to respond with the appropriate level of returned trust and affection.

She’s disappointed more than one person on that front before, and she knows that once they give up on her, it doesn’t take long for other things to start to slide.

So…. she’s waiting. On her guard. She knows she won’t be able to tell exactly when Jane is going to snap. She just knows it’s going to happen sooner or later.

Another roll of thunder rattles the sky- Joan feels it through her entire body- and her face, as she presses it deeper into the pillow, is wet with tears.

**

‘Kitty?’

In her room, Katherine is also pretending to be asleep- but less successfully than Joan.  
Still, she attempts to breathe evenly and slowly….

Jane waits.

Eventually, her daughter opens an eye and rolls onto her back.

‘I was honestly only checking facebook for a moment….’

‘Which is why I can hear the Stranger Things music?’

Katherine at least has the grace to blush.

‘It’s Saturday, Mum. And it’s not like anyone could sleep through that thunder.’

‘I know, love. That’s not actually why I came in- I wanted to ask if you’d mind looking in on Joan for a moment.’

Katherine props herself up on an elbow.

‘Why? I mean, sure but why? Is she alright?’

‘I don’t think so- I’m not sure.’

Jane takes in the puzzlement on her daughters face.

‘I went in to check on her- I wanted to see if she was alright with the storm- and i think she was awake but she obviously didn’t want me to know. Would you mind just popping in and seeing if she’ll talk to you, love?’ Jane’s face creases in consternation. ‘I really don’t like to think of her being all alone if she’s frightened.’

‘Sure.’ Katherine slips out of bed and pulls her dressing gown on. ‘She might be fine though. Just- you know, reading or something.’

‘Maybe.’ Jane doesn’t look terribly convinced and to be honest, neither is Katherine herself. As she passes to the door, a kiss is pressed to her hairline and Jane’s arm wraps around her for a moment.

‘Thank you, love.’

**

Katherine’s heart breaks just a tiny bit as she pushes the bedroom door open. Joan is lying so still under the covers that she’s radiating with tension and oh god, Katherine can remember how that felt- stiff and still and counting the seconds until whoever it was went away, hoping and praying that they would give up.

‘Joan?’

She has a tiny pang of guilt- she knows Joan will be hoping exactly the same thing about her- and there’s a moment in which she wonders if that perhaps would be kinder, to just leave: Jane told her to check but she didn’t tell her to force Joan to talk to her, and besides, Jane does her best (and her best is wonderful, her best is more patient and kind and understanding than most peoples) but she’ll never quite understand what it’s like, for Katherine, for Joan, for all of them.

‘Are you awake?’

There’s no response- the poor girl clearly doesn’t want (or need) company, and she doesn’t need it foisted on her, so she’ll leave, she decides…. And then a wave of thunder crashes over the house as if it’s trying to tear the sky apart, and Katherine- not in the least afraid of thunder- starts and bangs her hip against the chest of drawers and wonders for a second if a building has collapsed nearby to cause such a noise…. And when she’s able to hear things that aren’t the noise outside, what she hears are Joan’s sobs, muffled with pillow and duvet, and she realises she can’t just leave.

‘Hey.’ She makes her way over to the bed slowly- slow and non-threatening- and perches on the edge of it. Joan is obviously trying to stifle herself and not really succeeding (Katherine remembers that too). ‘Are you ok?’ She pauses. ‘I mean…. Like, obviously not, stupid question, but… are you?’

There’s no response and she doesn’t blame the girl- Way to be confusing, Katherine. What she wants to ask is, why exactly are you crying? Is it the storm or is it because once upon a time, when you were little and the world was soft and open, Bad Things happened during a thunderstorm and now you can’t hear thunder without hearing Her voice or feeling His hands? Are you afraid of the noise and the darkness or are you afraid because you know what can happen behind the easy cover of noise, behind the easy curtain of darkness?

Of course, she can’t ask Joan that.

‘I hope you don’t mind. Mum and me coming in. We just wanted to see if you were ok.’

Silence, save a little hiccupy gasp.

‘Storms can be so scary, especially in a new place- we didn’t want you to be on your own.’

Still, nothing.

Think, Katherine- what does she need to hear? What did you need Jane to reassure you of, again and again and again, so many times, until you were sure she must be sick of it?

‘You’re not in trouble for being awake, I promise. Mum wasn’t like….coming in to tell you off. I promise.’

There’s a pause- long and longer- and then slowly, slowly, a corner of duvet pulls back. Joan’s voice is husky with tears, and tiny with fear.

‘I… woke you all up.’

It’s a question as well as a statement and Katherine sort of has to fight the urge to cry. It’s sad, it’s just…. So sad.

What have they done to you? And who are they?

She makes her voice soft as a kiss.

‘No, no, you really didn’t, honestly. Mum was awake already- don’t tell anyone but she really doesn’t like storms either, i think she thinks she’s going to get electrocuted because she says she knew someone who knew someone who went to school with someone who got struck by lightening…’ Katherine gives a fond chuckle and rolls her eyes. ‘I asked Cathy and she said it’s impossible…. Anyway, you definitely didn’t wake her is all I’m saying. And she would’ve come to check whether she heard you or not- she checks on me too.’

Joan is still looking at her intently and Katherine hears the unspoken question: And you?

‘You didn’t wake me either- I didn’t hear a thing actually, but then I was watching Netflix anyway. Have you watched Stranger Things?’

A tiny, almost imperceptible shake of the head.

‘It’s really good, you should. I’ll call up an episode for you tomorrow after school and you can see if you like it. Anyway-’ 

She’s cut off by another peal- it’s nowhere near as loud as the one before but Joan shrinks into her pillow and sobs again.

She looks so little and young that Katherine can’t bear it- she reaches out a hand to Joan’s shoulder and gently rubs up and down. It’s not the hug she’d like to give but it’ll do- it’s human contact anyhow.

Joan flinches at her touch but doesn’t roll away from it.

‘It’s alright, it’s ok’ It’s meaningless, Katherine knows that- she gropes for something more actually helpful. ‘Shall I put the light on? Sometimes things feel worse in the dark.’

(She knows that to be true.)

Joan looks hesitant, chewing her lip, and casts a longing look at the lightswitch by the door.

‘It’s fine. I’m ok now.’

Katherine could laugh at how un-convincing she sounds. If, of course, the whole thing wasn’t so desperately heartbreaking. Like, the girl still has tears in her eyes and she’s shivering.

‘Well, still-’

She gets up- she’d rather talk in the light anyhow- and Joan sits up so quickly her pillow falls on the floor.

‘No! Don’t!’

Katharine pauses, her hand at the switch.

‘Why?’

Joan’s hands twist on top of the covers; her head dips and she mumbles something.

‘What was that?’

It’s barely audible. ‘I don’t think- I don’t know if- Jane might not want me to- to waste the electricity.’

She looks so anxious and Katherine wonders how many times she’s been begrudged something just for the hell of it? How many petty displays of parental authority has this poor girl had to endure?

‘She won’t mind, Joan. Honestly.’

It’s quiet but steadfast. ‘She might.’

‘She won’t. Really. She’s never once cared if i turn my light on or not. Not once.’

‘That’s different.’

‘How?’

‘You’re… her real kid.’

Katherine wrinkles her nose.

‘You know I’m not Joan- we told you when you arrived, remember? Mum fostered me too and then she adopted me but I wasn’t with her until I was nine.’

‘Still.’ Joan is unwavering. ‘You’re still… real. She might not mind for you but-’

‘.....Oh.’

Katherine wishes she had words for this, wishes she had words to make all of this better. How to explain to someone who has been hurt and rejected and second-bested all their life that it’s going to be different the hundredth time round?

She can’t. It’s awful but she can’t- she doesn’t know how to argue this, she’s too tired, she’s not a grown up or a psychologist or a social worker or- or anything.

She can’t make Joan believe her, not in a night.

‘Come with me.’

But she can make things easier for the girl, for tonight at least.

Joan stands nervously on the threshold of Katherine’s room, arms tight around her stomache. Katherine fumbles behind her desk and holds up the end of her string of pink fairy lights for Joan to see.

‘See? They run on batteries. Nothing wasted, no electricity. They’re meant to stay on all night. Right?’

Joan gives a tiny nod. She isn’t quite sure where this is going, unless Katherine is just showing off that she gets to sleep in a light bedroom when Joan doesn’t.

‘So- you stay here tonight with my lights and it won’t be so scary and you don’t have to be afraid of getting into trouble. Right?’  
Joan opens her mouth to object and then closes it. She wants to say it’s alright, she’s fine in her own room. She wants to say she doesn’t need to stay, that she isn’t scared at all.  
But also… she doesn’t really want to. Not at all.

‘It’ll be fun- like a sleepover!’ 

Katherine looks happy, excited even. No one has ever looked really happy at the prospect of her company before.

After a second, Katherine’s smile falters- she looks unsure.

‘I can also just lend you the lights, too, of course. You don’t actually have to stay here, I won’t be offended- you’re very welcome to them-’

She leans over to unhook them from around the bedhead and Joan is suddenly scared- she’s ruined it, she’s going to have to go back to her own room by herself and while that was one thing before, now she’s actaully here in the pink coziness of Katherine’s room, it seems like a horrifying prospect.

‘Please-’

Katherine stops unhooking the lights and turns- Joan has taken another few steps inside and she looks absolutely terrified.

‘Please- can I…. stay?’

Katherine smiles.

‘Of course you can.’

**

(It turns out Joan does like Stranger Things, and with one of Katherine’s earbuds in, she can barely hear the thunder. The pink curtains over the window shut out the storm and she feels safely cocooned under the pink duvet, the fluffy blanket over the top. And Katherine is comfortingly warm and solid next to her, her arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer with every crash. It’s so warm and cozy that despite everything, she feels her eyes start to get heavy and then she can feel herself drifting.

She rouses slightly when the door opens- she’s too sleepy to be afraid of getting into trouble and Kitty’s arm is still over her, so she’s still safe- and she feels the bedcovers being tucked over them both more securely, the laptop being closed and placed on the floor.

The sound of a kiss as Jane leans over her- she’s obviously come in to say goodnight to Kitty, and thank goodness she isn’t cross at Joan’s intrusion and-

And then- a kiss. Against her own forehead this time.

A soft voice- perhaps she’s dreaming it: Sweet dreams, sweetheart.’

And she sinks back into sleep.

(The thunder doesn’t bother her again.)


	3. A Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No-Good Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Joan has a Bad Day (Pt One)
> 
> Also Secondary School is a hellpit and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

It begins with her alarm clock breaking- no, it begins before that, with the dream that leaves her feeling anxious and out of sorts. It’s not a Bad bad dream- she doesn’t wake up with her pillow wet from tears and her throat aching from trying to scream herself awake- but it’s not a good start to the day either.

The shower scalds her, making her squeak, and then drenches her in a freezing deluge, and the shampoo- not her usual one, not the one she likes- stings her eyes as she fumbles for the temperature control.

It’s not a good beginning.

The kitchen is quiet when she goes downstairs- Jane’s note is still propped up against the fruit bowl: Have a good day, both of you! Love and kisses xxxx.

It’s written in what looks like eye pencil and it makes Joan smile for a moment- she can imagine Jane wearily trying to hunt down a pen at half past five in the morning and giving up, scrawling the note with whatever came to hand.

She likes that it’s for both Kitty AND her- she can tell because it isn’t signed Mum (which would make it a note to Katherine). And it’s not signed Jane either- which would feel like a pointed reminder that only one of them is Jane’s daughter, only to one of them is she ‘Mum.’. 

She wonders if Jane did four kisses on purpose- two each, scrupulously fair. Which Jane is. She’s learnt that much about her over the past two months, along with other things- that Jane drinks her tea with two heaped spoonfuls of honey and no milk, that she owns four pairs of slippers and never manages to have any of them to hand, that she will watch Love Island obsessively if she thinks Kitty and Joan aren’t in the vicinity. That she need only see Joan force herself to eat a particular food once before she stops serving it at all, that her hands against Joan’s hair when she’s waking her from a nightmare are the softest thing in the world.

Still, even with how much more comfortable she’s been feeling lately (she hardly ever catches herself being afraid that Jane will shout at her or punish her; she’s even told her some things that aren’t a result of Jane asking her a direct question- a couple of times, she’s actually asked Jane things of herself), she’s surprised at herself, that she misses Jane’s presence: making breakfast and laying out plates. Calling up the stairs that if Kitty isn’t down in five minutes, she’s going to make the pancakes just for Joan and herself, and I mean it Katherine. Putting the marmite in front of Joan’s plate without her having to even ask for it (she’s noticed that neither Jane nor Kitty ever touch the marmite themselve and that means it’s there specially for her and thinking about that makes her feel a strange warmth in her chest) and asking if she slept well and smiling warmly when all Joan can manage is a tiny twitch of the head.

(Although lately she has been answering with words and has even asked Jane how she slept a couple of times- and both times, Jane smiled really big as if Joan had done something amazing rather than just ask a simple question.)

She’s been getting more comfortable with things- with Jane- but she’d still, given the choice, have said she would have felt more comfortable eating breakfast on her own, or at least for it to be just her and Kitty.

Now that it is… she doesn’t like it as much as she thought she would. The kitchen feels colder and even when Kitty comes in- yawning and trying to open a hairslide with her teeth- it’s not the same.

They’re both quiet as they eat their cereal but as she goes to take Joan’s bowl to the sink with her own, Kitty nudges her shoulder.

‘It’s ok. She’ll be back by tonight- and it’s only for today. We can have dinner ready for her when she comes in.’

Joan nods and tries to smile back at her foster sister but it feels harder than usual.

*

School is… school. That she now gets to walk into school with Kitty is an improvement- no one looks at her when they can look at Kitty instead- and she knows she doesn’t have to worry about anyone trying to talk to her.

Things are more tricky when they have to go to their separate classrooms- the Year 8 form rooms are not even in the same part of the school as the Year 10 ones.

Her own classes are… a struggle. She’s aware that she sticks out. She’s used to being New- she’s been New so many times before- but that doesn’t mean she enjoys it and she knows it’s only a matter of time before New becomes replaced with something less innocuous: she’s been the girl who had a panic attack in assembly, the girl who never brought in lunch, the girl who cried when they were reading out loud in English.

She doesn’t want to know what it will be at this school- but whatever it is, she isn’t deluded enough to hope that she can get by on being known only as Kitty Seymour’s little sister.

The school corridors are a gauntlet of noise- too many voices all at once, too many eyes upon her, and there’s so much touching- people push and squeeze by, jostling bags and coats, and she’s being swept along in a wave of tightly packed students, the ceiling lights over bright and the air thick with rain-damp clothing drying and a miasma of body sprays.

There’s laughter- then a roar of almost animal ferocity as someone way back braces themselves against the mass, forces themselves forward, and then a wave of yelps and surprised squeaks as those in front are being crushed, pulled off balance, stumbling and helpless, and still those behind keep pushing, keep pushing- and just as Joan feels like she can’t hold back the scream that’s building in her chest, just as she feels herself tipping into uncontrollable panic, it lets up and everyone is righting themselves, pushing each other away, angry and flustered.

The anger is always at each other- never towards the faceless causer of cruel chaos but at those unlucky enough to be victim to it; sharp faces, sharp hands, sharp voices, prod and chide Joan away- she’s trodden on someones toe, knocked into someone else’s bag, and she’s still mumbling apologies when she gets to the classroom.

The day drags from the first. 

She’s managed to forget her homework- the homework that had given her hours of anxiety (science is not her best subject) until Kitty popped into her room while she was still at her desk to ask if she wanted some hot chocolate, before seeing the state she was in. 

With Kitty’s help, it had still taken her over an hour to complete… but eventually she’d been able to put her pen down, pick up her (now cold) hot chocolate and shuffle her papers together…. only to utterly fail to put the work back into her school bag.

The sick sinking feeling settles on her stomach half a moment before the teacher calls for the work to be handed in, and she accepts the scolding and detention silently, her eyes stinging.

It’s not a big deal, she knows it isn’t a big deal- at least, it shouldn’t be a big deal. No one else would even really register it. But the feeling of failure, of being a disappointment (yet again, yet again) still sticks to her, impossible to brush off.

There’s a substitute teacher in the next class- Geography- who is obviously slightly overwhelmed by them all. The room feels claustrophobic- the usual routine is thrown off by the teacher’s absence and everyone is taking advantage of this, moving around and between the desks, crowding and pushing and shouting to one another, and to Joan, it feels like there isn’t quite enough air for them all.

When the teacher eventually snaps, it’s loud and prolonged and in the front row, Joan feels extra exposed- she feels righteous anger radiating from the substitute in the front of the class, and resentful anger building in the rows behind, and she’s trapped in the middle.

The rest of the lesson is fraught and the teacher is tense- she snaps at Joan to pay attention when she sees her looking out of the window and the giggles that follow make her face feel hot. 

Kitty would be able to deal with this, she knows- Kitty-at-school always seems to her to be just as confident as Kitty-at-home (which surprised Joan slightly at first, who was all ready to be asked to refrain from approaching or talking to or about her foster sister in public- it’s something she’s been asked before, more than once, and it doesn’t really upset her much anymore).

She thinks about what Kitty would do in the same situation- and she suddenly wishes her sister was in her class, making everything more bearable just by being there.

But she isn’t. Of course she isn’t.

History is a little easier- there’s a test, which they have to do in silence, and although she knows she hasn’t done as well as she maybe could have done, it’s nice to have a chance to gather herself: the quiet is a restorative, even if it is over much, much too soon.

Going from the quiet classroom to the chaos of the corridor is a little bit painful though, and she has to fight the wave of panic that washes over her- for a second, she freezes in the doorway- I can’t, I can’t- but then someone is pushing her from behind, telling her to hurry up, and accustomed to doing what she is told, she does.

There’s a pressure inside her, a growing tightness in her chest.

She usually escapes to the music room for lunch. After discovering it on her second day, it’s been a godsend for her, for a couple of reasons: it’s quiet, not all the lights work so it’s nicely dim, and most importantly, it’s nearly always empty, save for Bessie, who is basically paid to make sure nothing goes too badly wrong with the schools music and drama department and who is rarely seen by anyone who isn’t Joan.

(When Joan first saw her, she was hunched over a keyboard that’d had something pink and sticky looking spilled over it and muttering darkly to herself, and Joan had involuntarily shrunk back from the woman with the dark lipstick and the tattoos covering her arms and the dont-mess-with-me set to her jaw.

That was before she knew Bessie though. 

Not that she knows her well now or anything, she just knows enough to not be afraid of her and to be reasonably certain that Bessie isn’t going to turn against her any time soon. 

Now, she knows about Bessie’s weakness for Milky Ways and about the four cats that carries around photos of in her wallet. She knows that Bessie can play the bass guitar in a way that makes it look easy. And she knows about Maggie, the music room’s other occupant- two years below Joan but looking much younger. She seldom speaks (if Joan hadn’t seen her talking her the curly haired girl who pops in and out sometimes, she wouldn’t be entirely certain that Maggie did speak at all) but she follows Bessie around like a baby duckling when she isn’t in class and Bessie- who most students seem to edge away from- manages to seem almost soft when she’s talking to Maggie. 

Maggie doesn’t talk to Joan but she doesn’t avoid her either, and actually not talking suits Joan quite well, and so the music room has become a sanctuary of sorts- a refuge for her and Maggie, with Bessie watching over like a fierce mother bear.

(It’s not an exaggeration- Joan once saw Bessie tearing into two Year 10 boys who had followed behind Maggie, calling her ‘vampire psycho’- especially cruel because as far as Joan can tell, Maggie has never bitten anyone other than herself- and the force of Bessie’s anger had made her heart almost beat out of her chest, even though she knew it wasn’t directed at her. She wonders sometimes if Bessie would defend her like that, but never for too long.)

She’s looking forward to the quiet peace of the music room- really, really looking forward to it, the thought of being able to hide herself away in the quiet calm for a while is basically what’s keeping her going at this point-

-but when she gets there, the door is locked and the room is dark.

She stands there, helplessly, clutching her bag and wondering what has happened. She’s sort of hoping that if she just stands there, Bessie will appear and open the door for her and she’ll be able to settle into her usual corner, and listen to Bessie wish violent curses upon whoever has damaged the piano that week….but it doesn’t work, and then there’s footsteps and a cross voice behind her asking what she’s doing, why she’s there, doesn’t she know she shouldn’t be in this [art of the building and does she think she’s better than the other students?

It’s so unexpected, and it’s stupidly made worse by the fact that it’s happening here, just outside her safe (for school) place.

She can’t move and she can’t talk and her lack of reaction is just making things worse, it seems- she’s insolent, she’s arrogant, she’s headed the right way for a detention- and although part of her knows that this is school, that there are rules which prevent anything really bad happening to her, another part of her is tensed up and wondering where the first blow will hit her first (her face so it will hurt more, her shoulder where a bruise can be hidden by clothes?)

She can feel the pain of it even though the blow itself never actually comes- instead, she’s barked at to get outside and somehow, she’s able to move, she’s walking, she’s down the corridor and out of the door, her eyes burning and her throat tight.

She’s not sure where she’s going- all her focus is on keeping the tears back- so she ends up just walking until the bell goes.

She could go to find Kitty, she knows she could- Kitty had been very emphatic that she should feel free to come and seek her out any time at school if she needed her, or even if she just wanted some company.

(She hasn’t summoned up the courage for it yet but Kitty has come across her once or twice and insisted she come to sit with her and Cathy and Anne and Anna. She’d been so nervous the first time but it hadn’t actually been too bad- Cathy had smiled warmly at her over the top of the notebook she was scribbling in and Anna had made room for her on the picnic table they’d dumped their bags all over. Anne had been quick to voice her opinion that Joan was an ‘old lady’ name and Joan had been poised to flee- but Kitty’s gentle hand on her arm had kept her in place and when Anne had finished her thought (‘It’s almost as bad as my name!’) and started offering round a packet of starbursts, she’d passed it to Joan first as if it was normal to do so.)

She knows she could go and find Kitty- but she won’t. As much as she wants her foster sister right now, she also feels like if Kitty is nice to her, she’ll cry and she really, really doesn’t want to… and there’s another part of her too that doesn’t want to ruin Kitty’s day by being needy. She doesn’t want to make Kitty regret her invitation- it’s far better if she just never takes it up so that Kitty need never have to worry about how to politely retract it.

Eventually, the bell goes. It occurs to her, as it does, that she never actually got around to eating the lunch in the bottom of her bag, and it’s that moment that she realises she’s hungry.

But it’s too late now, everyone is streaming back to class, so she follows.

Her first afternoon class is worse than the morning- perhaps it’s that she’s hungry, perhaps it’s that she can’t shut off the shouting and flashes of pain in her own head, perhaps it’s just a result of everything building up and building up, but whatever it is, she’s having to hold herself together. Her fingernails dig into her palms, she fights to keep her breathing steady.

She’s not paying a huge amount of attention to what’s going on in the class around her but eventually, she registers a disturbance behind her/

Loud obnoxious questions turn louder and louder until there’s shouting- a chair is overturned, and someone is storming out of the room, furiously muttering- she wants to cover her ears,to hide from the anger- and as they pass, a hand suddenly comes up and pushes her head forward. It’s not very hard but it’s unexpected, it jolts her. It’s not personal, she knows that really- it’s more just that she is an easy and convenient target- one of the quiet ones who are there to be tripped and pushed so that others can laugh at their stumbling confusing, who are there to have things thrown at them so that others can have the benefit of their distress. She’s an outlet of anger in the same way that the chair is overturned, the exercise book thrown on the floor, the worksheet ripped and crumpled- she feels the truth of this in one quick flash, and the anger of it too, and then, then she’s out of her chair, turning- the owner of the hand is only a step or two away, and she’s on him, clawing like a cat, hitting as hard as her pathetic strength will allow, and someone is shrieking, ‘no, no, no’ over and over, and it’s her.

There are voices around her, and several stinging blows to the side of her head, and then there are hands upon her, pulling her back and away, and she’s clawing at the empty air, throat raw and her face wet with blood and with tears.


	4. A Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No-Good Day (Pt 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is.... just fluff. Like, literally nothing happens in this chapter. It's basically the literary equivalent of just eating sugar from the bag.

The room that they leave her in is a classroom she hasn’t been into before, but it looks the same as the others- grey chairs of moulded plastic and scratched desks and tattered paper displays pinned to the wall.   
There’s a brief, whispered discussion about whether they can use a normal room for something like this which is resolved quickly by the fact that there’s not really anywhere else for her to go- not anywhere that’s different anyhow.

Joan hears this from her place on the floor, the corner that she’d pressed herself into as soon as they let go of her. She can’t see the door behind the chair legs that obscure her view and it feels a tiny bit safer.

Her head throbs from the blows she took.

The sudden energy that had filled her only moments before has abandoned her as quickly as it came but she’s used to it: she’s only ever snapped like this a handful of times in her life but every time, it’s quick. Still, things can go very, very wrong very, very quickly.

She’s not angry anymore- she just feels tired.

She’s tired of everything, tired of being like this, tired of everything being so hard. She wishes Kitty was there- but at the same time, she knows it’s a foolish hope. After all, what could Kitty actually do? She’s just a pupil- she can help Joan with her homework, she can play her music that helps to drown out thunder and lightning and nightmares, she can fill her in on which teachers to watch out for….but she couldn’t sort out something like this, she wouldn’t be able to actually make the teachers do or not do anything.

The thought comes out of nowhere: she wishes Jane was there.

She has to check herself for a moment- but it’s true, she does: she wants the sense of calm that Jane carries with her, her unending patience, the way she seems as if somehow she would always know what to do. 

(Not that Joan has witnessed any real catastrophes yet: a powercut and Kitty panicking because she’s mixed up a shift for her Saturday job and a fox getting itself stuck in the garage don’t really count. But she still thinks Jane could be faced with the sky falling in, and she’d just smile calmly and nod and suggest some plan while making everyone a cup of tea and everything would be alright somehow.)

Finding that she wants Jane is a surprise. And when a teacher opens the door (warily, as if she’s a wild animal that might lunge and bite) to tell her that they’ve called her ‘foster mother’, she’s at first relieved and then, almost immediately, it’s mixed with doubt. 

She isn’t entirely sure what Jane will make of this and oh god what if it’s this that tips the scale out of her favour, what if it’s this that puts an end to Jane’s patience, what if this is more than she is willing to put up with?

Honestly, she wouldn’t blame her.

*  
When the door opens for the sixth time, she doesn’t even look up- she hopes they’ll lecture her without making her saying anything, she hopes-

‘Joan, sweetheart?’

Her first thought is that Jane looks tired. Jane looks tired and it’s her fault, she has put those worried creases there, she has caused this, and it’s her fault her fault her fault- she’s bad she’s bad, she-

And then Jane is kneeling in front of her, reaching out, gently tugging Joan up and then she’s wrapped up in warm arms and held tight against Jane’s soft cardigan, breathing in honey-soap-and-tea, and at last the tightness in her chest is starting to ease.

She takes a shaky breath against Jane’s shoulder and feels the arms around her tighten. She hears Jane’s soft voice in her ear- ‘It’s alright, love, I’ve got you’- and suddenly hot tears are stinging her eyes. She tries to blink them back, she tries to swallow them down but it’s so hard. And perhaps Jane even notices because one of her hands is gently rubbing slow circles on her back and she’s murmuring that it’s ok, it’s ok to cry, she’s safe now- and Joan’s tears soak silently into Jane’s shoulder.

Jane doesn’t pull away, she doesn’t tense or push Joan back. She’s patient, patient as the earth, and even when Joan herself tries to move away after a few minutes, mumbling an apology- because surely it’s been long enough now and Jane must be dying to get up- she finds herself being drawn gently back into Jane’s arms with a soft but firm admonition- ‘You don’t have to be sorry sweetheart, everything is going to be alright’.

Eventually, when she’s breathing with just the occasional catch in her throat, Jane pulls back enough to look at her face.

‘Do you think you can tell me what happened?’

She doesn’t look cross, she doesn’t even sound cross, and it’s encouraging but articulating it, articulating it all, is difficult.

‘It was- everything was-’ She struggling. ‘Everything was so loud and hard… everything was wrong and I just- I-’ She looks down at her hands, feeling herself start to tear up again (how can she have any tears left?). ‘I’m sorry, I know what I did… I know I should-’

She’s trying to say that she understands that she’ll be punished, that she knows she needs to be punished (she isn’t scared of what Jane will do to punish her- at least, not very scared. At least, she’s trying not to be. After all, it’s not like Jane is going to hit her. Probably.) but it’s coming out wrong, and-

‘It’s ok, love.’ Jane hands her a tissue from her pocket and she scrubs at her wet cheeks. ‘Don’t worry- we can talk about it later, if you’d like. When you’re feeling more up to it. For now-’ She slides her bag onto her shoulder and smiles. ‘I think we should just get you home. Home and….maybe some hot chocolate? Does that sound good, sweetheart?’

It sounds so good.

‘Yes. Please.’

**

Jane makes her wait in the classroom while she goes to tell someone that she’s taking Joan home- from the chair Jane had helped her into before she stepped out, Joan can hear the slightly-too-loud-but-still-forcing-politeness voices. The head teacher sounds a bit sharp, defensive- she’s saying something about ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘zero tolerance’ and ‘if she’d just told a member of staff she was having problems-’: it makes her stomach clench with anxiety. 

Jane sounds….just the same as usual, really- calm and polite- and this make Joan nervous at first- what if Jane agrees with them? What if they convince her to make Joan stay at school? She starts to gnaw at the skin around her fingernails- what if Jane ends up agreeing that it was all her fault, what if they make Jane angry with her-

But Jane doesn’t look angry when the door re-opens, just resolute- she smiles at Joan- ‘Ready to go, sweetheart?’ and doesn’t look as if she’s blaming Joan for anything.

In the corridor, the head teacher is still waiting. She doesn’t look at Joan- or maybe she does, but Joan keeps her eyes on the floor.

‘Ms Seymour, I really think-’

‘I’m sorry’ Jane does sound sorry, is she going to give in? ‘I’m sorry, and I do understand your perspective, honestly-’ 

Joan’s throat clenches, she feels sick. She’s going to have to stay at school.

‘But I really wouldn’t be carrying out my duty of care if I made Joan stay- I think you can see for yourself she’s in no state for anything.’

She takes Joan’s hand, squeezes it.

‘I’m very happy to come in to talk more about it- and you have my number of course- but I need to take my daughter home now.’ She bestows a warm smile upon the other woman. ‘Thank you so much for being so understanding.’

And with that, she’s leading Joan down the corridor.

It’s as easy as that, and although Joan feels sure someone is going to shout after them, chase them down, insist she stay, no one does.

And Jane doesn’t let go of her hand.


	5. ATHN-GVBD Pt 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joan is suffering. I did not intend this but she is. 
> 
> Also I have a really strong desire to include more of the other queens and Liw, all of whom I have places for in this universe. I'd explain how they all fit in but I doubt anyone but me cares.

She’s expecting, when they get in, for Jane to tell her that they need to talk- she did after all say that they’d talk about it later. At the very, very least, she’s expecting a ‘kind-but-firm’ admonition, the extraction of a promise for this to never be repeated. She expects Jane to tell her that she’s disappointed- becauase how could she not be?

Instead, Jane just asks if she’s hungry (she shakes her head no but then her stomach rumbles and Jane smiles and says she’ll make her something in case she fancies it later), and if she’d like to take a bath.

‘Kitty prefers showers but I always find a hot bath very soothing if I’ve had a long day.’

She’s about to say no, that she’s fine (she doesn’t want to make a fuss and why waste the extra water when she showered that morning already?)- but the thought of being able to lie back and submerge herself and wash the awfulness of the day away is so tempting that she finds she’s nodding. When she goes up to the bathroom to turn on the water, she finds the tub already half full with bubbles that smell like oranges and her towel and pajamas warming on the radiator.

(Jane must have had to rush a bit to have done this in the time it took Joan to hang up her blazer and put her school bag away.)

When she sinks down into the bubbles, letting her head dip below the surface for a second, it’s like she’s letting the tension float away with the steam from the water.

**

She would like to stay, half dozing, in the bath forever but eventually, Jane is tapping on the door- there’s soup in the kitchen if she’d like some, apparently….and she IS hungry.

It’s not until she’s sitting at the kitchen table and Jane is putting a bowl brimming with chicken stock and yellow noodles in front of her that her eyes catch upon the note still propped up on the kitchen countertop… and she remembers.

Jane’s meeting. The reason she wasn’t around this morning- the reason she looks so tired, the reason she was up early.

The meeting that- thanks to Joan- she has almost certainly had to leave early and yet somehow hasn’t said a word about.

‘Is it alright, sweetheart?’ Jane has noticed she isn’t eating- her spoon is frozen. ‘Do you want something else?’

(Jane always asks this and it took her so long to stop taking it as a test, as a rebuke, as a pointed comment about her ingratitude. It’s only very recently that she’s able to accept that, were she to say yes, Jane would most likely just go ahead and make her something different.)

She shakes her head, mutely, but she still can’t eat.

She’s caused so much more trouble than she thought.

‘Joan?’

She makes herself take a mouthful of the soup so that Jane doesn’t worry- it’s too hot but it’s not the burning in her mouth that's making her want to cry.

Joan’s looking at her with so much soft concern that it’s unbearable- she can’t reconcile what she knows- she’s an inconvenience, she’s selfish and thoughtless and pathetic, she’s called Jane away from something important, her job, the thing that keeps food on the table and a roof over the heads of herself and her daughter and the girl who is now tagging along to get in on it too…. And really, what was wrong? Nothing- or at least nothing that wasn’t also being experienced by every other pupil in the school.

A little rough and tumble in the corridors, a little noise. The most minor of scoldings by a few teachers, a couple of small disruptions in her usual routine.

Nothing, really.

(She blocks off the part of her mind that revolts at this- the part of her that remembers what it felt like, that remembers the searing of her skin, the painful chaos in her head, the sheer helpless inescapable claustrophobia of it all. No. It- all of it- amounted to minor inconvenience at worse and the very fact that even now, faced with the consequences of her overreaction, she’s still trying to justify it, that she’s still trying to tell herself that she didn’t mean to react as she did…. Well, that’s just sickening. Disgusting.

She’s disgusting. She’s awful and they were right- they were all right to treat her as they did because…. Well, look at her now. Placed into the care of a woman who is so gentle that the worst Joan has ever heard from her is an annoyed tut, who is so generous and forgiving that she hasn’t spoken one word of rebuke for having her whole day disrupted for nothing…. And what does she do? Scream and cry and attack people like she’s an animal. Doesn’t talk, refuses to do Jane even that common courtesy. Keeps poor Kitty awake with her stupid fears- thunder and lightening and bad dreams- and is she a small child? Puts everyone on edge, causes everyone trouble.

Kindenss is wasted on her, goodness and sweetness and understanding are wasted on it, she knows that now.

She’s too far gone.

**

She eats a few more spoonfuls of soup. (She doesn’t taste it.)

Jane is watching her.

(Sh hasn’t even made soup for herself- she’s gone to that trouble just for Joan- and the fact that Joan hasn’t even thanked her yet….)

‘Th- thank you. For the soup.’

Jane smiles. ‘You’re welcome, love.’

It’s hard but she needs to say it- it’s not enough, of course, and she’s not a little bit scared of what will happen when she does make Jane realise how much trouble she’s caused….but it still has to be said.

‘I’m really. Really. Sorry.’ She keeps her eyes on her bowl and then wonders what’s wrong with her that she can’t even look Jane in the eye while apologising.

Jane looks a bit surprised though.

‘What for?’

Is she being sarcastic? Or does she just want Joan to say it, so that she understands exactly what she’s done wrong?

‘For….’ It’s on the tip of her tongue to say everything but that would be too easy, ‘everything’ is a cop out, ‘everything’ allows her to skim over the details and does she deserve that?

‘For… today. Making them call you and you having to come and get me and…. Your meeting, I messed up your meeting- And you had to get up so early for it and I just….. I ruined it all and- and I’m so sorry, I’m sorry-’

The words are choking her but she has to get them out, she’s digging her nails into her palms and it hurts but it’s not enough, it’s not enough- she wants to break the skin, she wants to be bleeding-

Warm hands cover her own, gently trying to uncurl her fists.

‘Joan, love, it’s alright-’

‘It isn’t!’ It’s almost a shout- she’s raised her voice a bit at least and then she wants to bite her tongue, how is she shouting at the woman she’s apologising to, can’t she even do this right?

She makes her voice quiet again but it;s hard- she’s shaking- she isn’t cold but she’s trembling all over, it’s making the words come out wrong. ‘It isn’t alright- I- I make everything hard for you and for Kitty too and…. I ruined today and I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t but I did and-’

‘Sweetheart, you don’t have anything to be sorry for, I promise you-’

She can’t understand why Jane is lying like this, what’s wrong with her-

‘I do, I-’

She doesn’t mean to, she doesn’t even know how it happens- one minute she’s looking urgently at Jane over the table, Jane’s hands still over hers, and then something jolts- maybe she moves without meaning to- but it makes the table jolt too and her soup- still nearly full and still steaming hot- slops over the rim of the bowl and Jane gives a little gasp and pulls away her hands at the heat and-

-andshe’shurtshe’shurtshe’shurt-

She’s hurt Jane- bringing her count of physical injuries inflicted up to two, and it’s barely even 3pm- and shecantshecantshecantshe-

She bolts.

Tripping over her feet, up the stairs, through her door, catching against something as she goes that leaves a long scratch but it doesn’t matter, it’s even good because surely she deserves it and then she’s curling up tight into the corner of her wardrobe, pressing herself into the join between the walls and pressing her head down, her hands gripping her hair and her eyes squeezed shut.

And she wants nothing more than to disappear.

**


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Utter self indulgent fluff. Joan finally catches a break.

The closet is suffocating but it’s also safe- it’s stifling long-ago memories of being trapped (she knows now that they’re memories, not dreams, as she was told when she was younger. Apparently, the hope had been that she would _ forget _ . She isn’t sure who suggested this plan but she would bet anything that whoever they were had never actually experienced being locked in a small space for an extended period of time.) but it’s also more recent memories: of hiding, of pressing herself into small dark spaces in order to buy herself some time, of actually managing to escape punishment (or at least a specific punishment) altogether. 

(She wants to scream in fear, she also wants to never leave.)

Over the confusion, she feels guilt, sharp and stinging: she keeps hearing Jane’s gasp of pain and every time, it’s louder, it’s a sharp intake of breath and then it becomes a scream, and the only reason she is sure that the scream is not her own is the coppery taste of blood from where she is biting down on her own lip.

Then…. footsteps.

Footsteps and her heart is pounding- she presses herself back as far as she can but it’s only a small closet and it’s not like she’s hidden really and she’s squeezing her eyes shut as the footsteps come close, come closer…. She waits for the doors to be pulled open, the harsh light. She waits for shouting and rough, pulling hands upon her and honestly, she isn’t even sure if she’s expecting Jane or Kitty or someone else entirely- someone new, someone old….

But the doors stay shut as the footsteps stop.

(She’s breathing too loud, she’s breathing far too loud, she’s-)

A tentative tap on the door.

‘Joan, sweetheart?’

She doesn’t answer, she can’t answer- but she’s sure Jane can hear her shaking, she’s sure Jane can hear the blood pounding in her ears.

‘Joan-’

There’s movement and then the voice is suddenly level with her- Jane must be sitting on the floor.

‘Can you open the door, love?’

She can’t- it’s not even from defiance, she’s just frozen- and she wonders why Jane isn’t pulling her out herself. Unless her hand is hurt too badly. Unless she’s going to count every minute that Joan doesn’t come out against her and increase her punishment accordingly.

(They do that, sometimes.)

But she can’t move.

She wonders if Jane is going to get rid of her immediately.

(Of course she won’t be allowed to stay now.)

She wonders if she’ll be allowed to say goodbye to Kitty, to thank her. 

She wonders if she’ll be allowed to keep any of the clothes that Jane has brought her- the soft flannel pajamas with the daisies, the cozy sweater, the warm coat and scarf, the tshirts that still feel shop-brought new, even though she knows Jane still has lots of Kitty’s old things in a cupboard somewhere that she definitely could have worn instead.

She’s expecting to be scolded- at the very least. She’s expecting to have to apologise (even though she knows the words will stick in her throat like they always do, even though she knows that always makes everyone angrier). 

She expecting anger and maybe shouting, and she tenses when Jane starts talking- but Jane doesn’t sound angry. Her tone, her words, are soft.

‘It’s alright.’

(What is she saying?)

‘I understand you’re scared darling. You’ve had...a lot of bad luck.’

(Luck. Such a wrong word of everything that she’s been through- a word that should by rights only belong to spilled cups of tea and forgotten door keys. Such an inadequate word. Yet also- oddly freeing. It’s blameless. Guiltless. It makes it sound as if all the things that have happened to her- the litany of failures and mistakes and hurt and sadness and regret- are really nothing to do with her. As if they’re things that could have happened to anyone. Not her fault at all.)

‘You’ve had to experience things that-’ Jane breaks off, clearly deciding against that route. ‘I know it’s hard and I know it’s frightening and…. I just want you to know that’s ok. I know that it must be hard to trust me. But I’d like to show you that you can. And I know that won’t be right away and it will take a while- perhaps a long time, perhaps a very long time- but that’s alright, sweetheart, because these things take time and there’s nothing wrong with that.’

She’s shaking, so hard that her teeth are chattering, and she can’t stop. She wonders if Jane can hear it.

‘The most important thing to me right now is making sure that you feel as safe as possible. Because you are safe here. You’ll always be safe here, no matter what happens. And if sitting there is helping you to feel safer, then that’s ok. As long as it doesn’t hurt you or anyone else, I want you to feel that you can do whatever you need to do to feel safe here.’

There’s a pause in which Jane should get up and leave but she doesn’t, and to her own surprise, Joan feels a faint relief at this, at Jane’s continued presence. She doesn’t want Jane to open the door- but she doesn’t want to be left by herself either.

‘Honestly though, I’m a bit worried about leaving you entirely on your own when you’re upset so I’m going to just sit out here with you. If you need anything, I’m here. But you don’t have to open the door until you’re ready. We’ll do this all at your pace, sweetheart.’

Joan has experienced many things. She knows hungry and she knows cold. She knows pain.

She knows what it is to have people’s smiles grow thing and stretched when they aren’t returned, she’s heard once-loving voices turn a little harder and sharper day by day. She’s made up fears for people who she can tell are determined to feel like they’re helping her. She’s had intimacy demanded of her, forced onto her- suffocated with the pressing, needy hugs of guilty strangers, nodded stiff acquiesce to demands that she understand that she’s ‘safe now’.

But this patient acceptance, this calm, this quiet, is something new.

She isn’t sure how to respond. So she just sits.

She sits, and Jane sits.

She sits as her legs grow stiff and then tingly and then go numb. She sits as her back aches, her lip throbs, her tears dry on her cheeks.

She sits and waits and Jane sits and waits, and the occasional car rumbles outside and she hears, faintly, a dog barking, and neither of them move.

Sometimes she hears Jane shifting her position outside the door but only faintly- it’s as if she’s trying to be subtle, trying not to let Joan hear, as if she can keep up an illusion of being comfortable even when she surely isn’t.

The hall telephone rings, distantly, and then stops after Jane lets it go unanswered.

Time stretches on and on. She doesn’t have a watch but she can judge from her own discomfort that they’ve been sitting like that, silently, for at least a couple of hours.

Children’s voices from the street outside: school must have finished for the day.

(The morning- the usual routine of showering, knotting her tie, tea and toast and walking with Kitty- feels a very long time ago.)

They sit and they sit and somehow, still, Jane makes no move for the door: there’s no sighed impatience, no ‘enough is enough’ or ‘this is getting ridiculous’ or any of the other things that she is accustomed to hearing from people who promise patience but who fail to mention that their patience comes with a time limit.

They sit and the air in the closet grows warm and Joan’s feet have been numb for so long- and then…. 

‘Kitty used to hide under her bed when she first came to me.’

Jane’s voice is a little rough, with the sound of someone who hasn’t spoken in a while, but she clears her throat and starts again.

‘She had…. Maybe half a foot of space underneath, so it must have been a squeeze… maybe it was a bit more, but not much…. The first morning she was here, I thought she’d run away at first, my heart nearly stopped. I was so relieved when I found her…I had to actually start hoovering properly under the beds from then on because if there was too much dust, it would make her sneeze and she didn’t like to make any noise, if she could help it….’

Jane just… talks. She doesn’t seem to be waiting for a response.

(Letting Joan know she’s there. And perhaps, Joan thinks, letting her know that this- the hiding, the waiting to earn trust- isn’t new to her. That it isn’t going to scare her away.)

She talks about Kitty but she doesn’t tell Joan anything too intimate, there’s nothing really embarrassing. She sounds fond, and Joan wonders what it must feel like to have someone talk about you like that, with that warmth in their voice.)

(She wonders if Jane will ever have occasion to talk about her to anyone, and she wonders, despite itself, what it will sound like).

She talks a bit about Kitty’s friends- they’re obviously regular visitors to the house- and some of it is new and some it isn’t.

(She already knows that Cathy lives with her godmother- she’s even caught glimpses of the woman, waiting to drive Cathy home after school, when Kitty has pointed her out- and it’s funny that someone who looks so serious, even stern, is the same person she’s heard Cathy talk about so warmly. She knows that Anna loves dogs, she knows that Anne has an older sister, Mary, who already has children of her own. But she hasn’t heard some of what Jane is telling her- about Anna trying to smuggle one of her dogs- then a puppy- into the house when she and Kitty first had a sleepover, about Anne and Kitty feigning chickenpox- with the help of red felt tip- to avoid having to attend Sunday morning church after staying the night at Cathy’s house.)

It’s funny- she’s still scared, she’s still hurting- her head is aching too now, along with her back- but she finds she’s actually listening to the stories as well- they’re funny, Jane is good at telling stories, it seems, and it’s interesting to hear so much about Kitty’s cool friends, and on top of it all, Jane’s voice is just so soothing. As long as she’s talking, she knows Jane isn’t cross with her or impatient or annoyed, simply because her voice is so warm, so gentle.

Jane talks and talks- she seems to have an inexhaustible store of anecdotes. She drops in stories about herself too- about being a little girl and making elaborate plans for her wedding, for her children, for her house, about setting up homes under bushes and in trees and in old cardboard boxes, and about making household pets out of slugs and snails and earwigs and woodlice (‘But not spiders,’ she adds with a shudder. ‘Never spiders!) and about her parents reactions at her attempts to keep her pets inside for the winter.

She talks and she doesn’t appear to get bored of talking, or weary or impatient… but her voice does eventually drop a little- it’s hard to keep up the same volume for hours on end, and Jane doesn’t do a public speaking often in her line of work.

Her voice drops, and, close as she’s sitting, it’s hard for Joan to hear through the door of the closet.

She has to really strain her ears and even then she can’t make it all out, and although the familiar cadence of Jane’s voice is still nice, she wants the words too, she wants these stories that Jane is giving her, she wants these bits of Jane’s past that she’s, for some reason, choosing to give to Joan when no one would blame her for sharing them only with Kitty.

(She’s had to retell her own stories over and over again- each new social worker has her repeat them, each new foster carer wants to ask her about them, even teachers sometimes try gently probing her with barely-concealed curiosity… but she’s never had anyone share their own past with her. No one else has ever offered up any of themselves to her in return.)

She wants to hear so much that somehow her arm unfreezes enough that she’s able to reach out and slowly, slowly, slowly ease the door of the closet open just a tiny bit.

And Jane pauses.

Joan tenses, ready to pull back again, ready for the spell to break…. But then, almost immediately, Jane carries on, as if she never stopped at all, and she relaxes.

Inch by inch, the door opens. Jane doesn’t react after the first time- it’s only when the door is open enough that Joan can see her face that she stops to give her a warm smile.

She looks so happy, she looks so proud- but still, she doesn’t break away from her narrative, she carries on.

School, and throwing a tantrum when her brother was sent to Latin lessons and she wasn’t, keeping up until her parents gave in and then realising, too late, that she hated Latin and held no aptitude for it at all.

Babysitting, and being dismissed in disgrace when the child she was caring for decorated a white carpet with a green felt pen.

She keeps on, and Joan lets her voice carry her, she lets the softness surround her- but then, all at once, it’s not enough, she wants more, and she finds that her hand has been slowly, slowly edging across the carpet until it’s right next to Jane’s. 

She’s agonising about closing the last inch of space….. And then Jane looks at her with the same gentle smile and puts her own warm hand over Joan’s cold one.

‘Alright, sweetheart?’

She manages a tiny nod and Jane’s smile widens.

‘You’ve been very brave. It’s been a hard day, hasn’t it?’

Another nod. She can feel exhausted tears building behind her eyelids. She suddenly wants nothing more than to be held, to let Jane wrap her up in her arms and comfort her.

‘Do you think you’d be able to get up if I helped you? You must be a bit stiff.’

It’s hard, uncurling her cramped limbs, and she stumbles as she tries to stand, pitching forward- and then Jane is catching her and she’s being held close in warm arms, a voice in her ear: ‘It’s ok sweetheart, I’ve got you’.

She finds she’s clinging, she can’t help it, and the tears are spilling over but Jane doesn’t pull away. She holds her tighter.

‘It’s ok, I’ve got you, love.’ For a smallish woman, Jane feels strong. Solid. Safe. ‘It’s ok, it’s all going to be ok.’

And Joan believes her. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely lovely reviews are so kind- thank you all so much!

She wakes up slowly, swimming through fog- is it morning? Except no- she’s wearing her pajamas but the light is all wrong for it to be morning, too dim, too grey, and she doesn’t feel like she’s been asleep all that long. There’s a deep soreness in her arms and legs. Her eyes feel swollen.

She’s not under the covers- there’s a blue blanket covering her- and her head isn’t on the pillow, it’s-

‘Hello, love’

Jane tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear and she’s too sleepy, too comfortable to even think of flinching away. It comes back to her in a rush- the awful day, the feeling of having to fight to hold herself together, of slowly fracturing, shouting, the blood the blood the blood- the dark of the closet and Jane holding her while she sobbed and shook- and then- it’s coming together now- gently being guided over to her own bed. The sudden panic at the prospect of being left alone and being held tightly, reassuringly, against Jane’s chest, one hand cupping the back of her head the way one would for an infant. Jane’s soft murmur gradually soothing her from tears to sniffles and heavy drowsiness spreading over her: ‘It’s alright love, I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re ok, everything is ok.’ No rhyme and no melody but the most soothing of lullabies.

Dozing off against Jane earlier, she had felt that she would never be able to bear to unlatch her own clinging hands from Jane’s cardigan, but now, waking up, dry mouthed and sore eyed, she feels faint stirrings of embarrassment.

(She really should move her head from Jane’s lap to the pillow.

Somehow she doesn’t.)

‘Did you sleep well?’

She nods- for once, no dreams, disturbing or otherwise. A welcome change.

Her hand goes up to brush against the damp patch on Jane’s shoulder- she’s opening her mouth to apologise when Jane’s hand covers her own. It feels nice, it feels warm.

‘It’s alright, sweetheart.’ A small smile tugs at the corner of Jane’s mouth. ‘I think it needed a wash anyway.’

There’s a second before she realises Jane is making a joke and then she lets herself smile- it’s tired, more a movement of the lips (she doesn’t think she quite has the energy to actually find anything really funny right now) but it’s also evidence that Jane doesn’t seem about to force her into a round of uncomfortable self analysis, otherwise known as ‘talking about it.’

(They often wanted to make her talk about it, and it never mattered that she was tired and it never mattered that it made her feel worse and it never mattered that she knew and they knew that neither would be able to fix any of it, that they wouldn’t ever be able to come close. They wanted her to talk about it, and so she did, and they would listen with the mildly satisfied expression of someone getting something tediously necessary ticked off of a to-do list, and then they would get cross that she wasn’t feeling better afterwards.)

‘How do you feel, love?’

She feels a little clench of anxiety at this familiar, threatening question- but Jane doesn’t have that expectant look about her, and she has just spent a good few hours sitting with her, comforting her, holding her….and so she answers as honestly as she can.

‘Tired. And….a bit sore.’

They sometimes would get irritated when she answered like this, substituting blunt physical symptoms in place of complicated emotional analysis, but Jane doesn’t look like she thinks Joan is being deliberately difficult.

‘No wonder. The closet can’t have been comfy.’

Her matter of fact tone is a surprise- or maybe, Joan thinks, it shouldn’t be by now. Jane still- after all the weeks- has shown no sign of being like the others. Maybe she can start judging Jane not by how the others were but by how Jane  _ is. _

‘Are you hungry?’

‘I’m…. not sure?’

It’s an answer she wouldn’t have thought to give before- the sort of answer that, though true, would have earner her sighs and accusations of ‘messing them all around’ but she can risk it, she thinks. With Jane, she can risk it.

(She thinks she can, at least.)

‘That’s fair enough love. You must be feeling a bit all over the place after the day you’ve had. I’ll start dinner soon and you can see if you fancy something then or if you’d like to wait a bit.’

Dinner. It must be later than she thought- and a peek at Jane’s watch where it rests on the edge of the bed confirms it.

She’s just wondering where Kitty is- is she home? Has she chosen to stay away?- when there’s a tap on the door.

‘It’s me…’

Jane doesn’t answer right away- she looks to Joan first, and actually waits for her to respond, it isn’t a cursory glance for the appearance of asking for permission. It’s as if she is genuinely ready to tell Kitty to come back later on Joan’s say so- and the power of it is new, dizzying, almost frightening.

She nods, of course she nods (as if she could tell Kitty she isn’t allowed into a room in her own house! Although…. She does also have a sneaking suspicion that Kitty might actually accept it if she did. That she might understand.)

‘Come in love.’

Kitty pokes her head around the door as if wondering what she might find, and then comes in properly, looking slightly relieved.

‘Hi-’

Her uniform is rumpled in the effortlessly casual way that Joan would love to be able to emulate- she must have just got in.

She smiles at Joan, she leans down for Jane’s kiss hello, but she doesn’t ask any questions- there isn’t even a flicker of curiosity about why Joan is lying on her bed hours before she’d usually be asleep, about why Jane is with her, about why Joan is home from school at all, about why she must have walked home alone.

‘How was your day sweetheart? Oh, and did you remember to get the milk?’

Jane makes room on the outside edge of the bed and Kitty perches on it, pulling off her tie.

‘It was fine. God, Sainsburys was mad though- I think they had a late delivery or something, I practically had to fight this old lady for the last pint-’

Kitty launches into her story with her usual animation- how much of it is true? Probably very little of it, Joan knows- possibly she just made eye contact with someone while in the dairy aisle and is elaborating on it…it’s amusing though. Kitty is good at this, at turning minor occurrences into little funny anecdotes to entertain, to make people laugh. Jane chuckles fondly when she talks about the lady using her walking frame as a battering ram.

Kitty’s sheer lack of questions means that she must know, and the thought is unwelcome- Joan wonders if school gossip filled her in….but that wouldn’t be enough to explain all of it. Jane must have told her. How much Jane told her is something she both desperately wants to know and also never wants to find out.

‘-and by the time I escaped, she was eyeing up this mum’s trolley as if she was planning on pinching hers-’ Kitty takes a breath and then turns to answer Jane at last ‘-and so...yes. I did get the milk.’

‘Thank you love. Are you hungry?’

‘Starving. The vegetables are all cut and everything, and the oven is preheating- I’ll lay the table when it’s ready if that’s ok?’

‘Of course- I’ll put it in now then-’ Jane gently starts to unwind herself from the bed and Joan fights back the sudden desire to cling. Perhaps Jane feels it though- she looks at Kitty.

‘You girls can keep each other company until it’s time to eat, can’t you?’

It’s phased as diplomatically as possible but it makes Joan’s face feel hot- being passed between people like she’s a pathetic child who can’t be left alone right now is embarrassing, and it’s compounded by the fact that it’s true.

At least Kitty doesn’t look annoyed at the request.

‘Of course!’ She smiles at Joan. ‘If you don’t mind? I’d really like to put off that algebra for as long as possible….’

She nods and Kitty makes herself comfy at the foot of the bed as Jane leaves.

It’s slightly awkward as the door closes- there’s a lot that they’re not talking about- and for a moment, they both just sit there. Kitty busies herself with easing the elastic out of her ponytail and shaking the pink tips out extravagantly, but it’s determinedly casual.

Joan doesn’t know what she can say, so she just waits.

Eventually Kitty sighs and looks at her straight on.

‘Look. We might as well just be straight about it- I know you’ll be wondering if I don’t tell you. Yes, I heard that...something happened in one of your classes but no one really knows what. Mum texted me that she was coming to get you- she said you were having a hard day but she didn’t tell me any details, and she won’t either.’

There’s a slight loosening in her chest. Not as bad as she had feared then.

‘Did she tell you-’

‘No. She literally just said you were having a bad day so she was picking you up early and not to wait for you after school was over and could I go to the shops for her on my way back. Nothing else, I promise.’

‘Ok…’

There’s another pause.

‘You can tell me about it if you want to but you don’t have to. If you want to talk, then I’m here but if not, that’s fine. Oh, and if this ever happens again, you can send someone to get me or come and find me if it’ll help but I won’t be upset if you don’t want to. Ok?’

She waits for Joans nod.

‘Ok. I think that’s all of it.’

Joan wonders how much of this speech is planned: it sounds as if Kitty has been practising it, trying things out in her head, looking for the magic words to reassure.

‘Is-’ She clears her throat. ‘Is everyone talking about it?’

‘Honestly?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then yes. But it’s all a bit vague- like someone said you beat up a kid and someone said you got attacked…..But Anne and Anna and I are shutting everyone down as much as we can. And Cathy emailed the head to remind them that they had like a duty of care to not allow gossip and rumours and stuff, so that should help.’ She grins. ‘Cathy said she’d get Catalina to help if they didn’t listen to her and they’re seriously scared of that woman at school so that’s good.’

She has… a lot of questions: what else is everyone saying, why are Kitty’s friends helping her out like this since it’s a lot just for it to be a favour to Kitty? But the one that comes out first is ‘Why are the school scared of her?’

(She can’t say Catalina when she hasn’t even met the woman- it just feels wrong. Especially if she’s as scary as she sounds.)

‘Well-’ Kitty settles back, she’s going to make a story of it of course and Joan finds herself smiling- this is safe territory, this is familiar, Kitty telling her a story while she listens and laughs and doesn’t have to talk unless she wants to.

(Perhaps she and Kitty can just go on like normal without things being too awkward? Perhaps everything really is ok.)

‘So, when we started in Year 7, Cathy was like so much shyer than she is now. Honestly, you can’t even-’

It’s a surprise to hear that- she can’t quite imagine the girl with the air of quiet calm confidence that she exudes like an aura. It was the first thing she had noticed about her, the first thing that she liked about Cathy: she wasn’t as intimidating as Anne or Anna, with their noise, their energy.

‘She’d only just starting living with Catalina and I think she was still sort of scared of her, because she didn’t talk. I mean, obviously she did but not if she could help it, except with us because she’d known us forever.’

(Joan knows this already- she’s heard about how Cathy and Anna were friends from Reception, about how they befriended Kitty and Anne in Primary School when Kitty moved in with Jane and switched to their school, how Anne had plunked herself down at Kitty’s table on her first morning and just started talking to her as if they were already friends, about the loan of Kitty’s strawberry scented rubber that cemented things.)

‘Basically, she was just completely-’ Kitty makes a zipping motion across her mouth. ‘And some of the teachers were just normal and not dicks about it but some of them were just-’ Again, a dramatic wave of the hand.

‘There was one- she’s left now, thank god, she was such a bitch, Mrs Millson- she took it as this personal affront to her. So she started making Cathy answer every question first AND she’d make her stand up to answer them, even though literally no one else ever had to. And at first Cathy’d try to answer but then she’d just get told off for being too quiet, for mumbling or whatever…. It was horrible for her. God knows why she got singled out because her work was always really good but anyway. And then I think it all just got to her and she’d like stammer, at first only in that class but then it just carried over.’ Kitty sighs. ‘Of course everyone was just awful to her about it. Like, really awful- calling her names and trying to grab her and make her talk at break and after school. Anne got into so many fights over it but she wouldn’t tell anyone why because Cathy was scared she’d get into even more trouble and she didn’t want to have to tell Catalina about it in case she took the schools side, which was that she just needed to stick up for herself… and Anna tried to help too, except it was harder for her because people were really nasty to her too, so she couldn’t really help as much as she wanted to because no one cared what she said.’

(This is another surprise: Joan can’t imagine what anyone would find to bully Anna over. Being too cool?)

‘I tried to help too but I think I was probably a bit useless- I was still really quiet myself, but people laid off me a bit more because I was that kid they’d all been told to feel sorry for by their parents. But it meant they just mostly ignored me. Anyway-’ Kitty moves to Joan’s end of the bed, lays out full length on her stomach. Joan copies her so they’re side by side.

‘It was getting really bad and then one day, in class she was really having a go at her and eventually Cathy started crying really hard, and shaking and just completely freaking out, and all of us- I think it was Anna first but Anne and I joined in of course- she started shouting at Mrs Millson to leave Cathy alone and….well ,she said some stuff you probably shouldn’t say to a teacher and…. It got a bit chaotic. Everyone else just got in on the noise and drama, not that they actually cared about Cathy at all. Eventually, we all four of us got hauled out of class and to the head because we started it, apparently.’

Kitty smiles a bit at the memory.

‘This was the first time Catalina had ANY idea what had been going on- though apparently she’d noticed something was up- and when they called her in- they called Jane in too, and Anne’s sister because her parents were away I think, or maybe they just didn’t fancy coming and Anna’s dad…. Anyway, Catalina got there way before the others because she wasn’t working, and she just swept in like a queen or something. Honestly, you’ve never seen anything like it- she was so regal! We were all sort of huddled together outside the heads office just assuming we were going to be expelled or something awful and Catalina walks in like she owns the place and the head came out of the office and while he was still doing his bit about why she’d been called in, she just turned her back on him completely, scooped Cathy up into a massive hug and told her it was all ok, she wasn’t going to be in any trouble…. and then she turned to the rest of us, and told us all to come and tell her what was going on first of all. Like, without any teachers present, and when he tried to argue she looked at him like he was this absolute PEASANT and just goes ‘I WILL speak with the girls first’.... And he just let her! I think he was really shocked. And then after we’d told her everything- the rest of us did, Cathy wasn’t really up to saying much, she said for us to wait and we heard her absolutely going off on him in the office… for ages!’ Years later, Kitty still looks impressed. ‘I don’t know exactly what happened- Jane arrived soon after and I did have to sit through a proper talk in the office because Mum doesn’t do the whole shouty-scary thing so well, even though she did tell them that she wasn’t going to accept any sort of punishment for me because as far as she could tell, I hadn’t done anything wrong at all… Anyway, whatever Catalina must’ve said just terrified them because next thing we know, Mrs Millson is ‘taking some time off’ and a whole bunch of kids in our year got their parents called in to be told that their children were vile little bullies…. It was wild. Anyway, Catalina is like a big threat to the school now. We got her to go in when that weird new P.E teacher had that thing about period pain being a made up excuse to get out of games and she just crushed him as well….’

Kitty finishes the story and smiles at Joan, mistaking her look.

‘Oh it’s ok- Cathy won’t mind I told you all that. She actually said I should, if I thought it would help. She said to tell you that like all the clevest, most interesting people have at least one massive freak out at school at some point in their lives and also that at least yours didn’t involve trying to throttle anyone with a school tie like Anne did.’ She breaks off. ‘Oh, someone called Anna Nazi-bitch when we were in year 9’ she adds, explaining.

‘....Oh….’

‘So yeah, she said to say that. Anne said to say she still knows how to make an excellent garotte if you need her to, if anyone tries to hassle you again- I think she was joking but you never know…. And Anna said that you should definitely come and sit with us at lunch if you’d like to- actually, you know what-’

Kitty fumbles in the pocket of her blazer and pulls out her phone, passing it over.

‘Read it for yourself-’

Joan holds the phone carefully, and scrolls through the messages of encouraging support: ‘-tell her that everyone is a dick to everyone in Year 8 but they’ll get over it-’ ‘Tell her Catalina can come and do her thing if Jane can’t-’ ‘Tell her it’ll all be forgotten soon.’ 

All for her.

It makes her eyes well up but Kitty doesn’t say anything as she surreptitiously wipes her eyes on her sleeve.

‘Tell her that really embarrassing story about Anne because it might cheer her up-’ ‘Tell her that it’s NOT TO BE REPEATED and that I’m only agreeing because she’s your sister-’

She looks up at Kitty questioning after reading the last one- does she really refer to her as…?

Kitty follows her eyes to the message in question and squeezes her hand.

‘Well, we are, aren’t we?’

There’s a moment of old panic- it’s a test, a trap, it’s a cruel joke- but then she focuses instead on Kitty’s gentle smile, the warmth of her hand. She looks sincere and so she takes a chance.

‘....Yes. Yes please.’

And Kitty beams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of Cathy and Catalina having the same sort of relationship that Jane and Kitty do and it's my hc that, at least in this universe, they do- that Cathy lives with Catalina because her parents died. Also that Anne has semi-neglectful socialite parents and so her older sister was left to look after her a lot when they were younger but that they aren't super close, it was more necessity. Anna is a young Genesis in this fic, and Cathy is a young Maiya.


End file.
